[kristiandupont]

Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to? I don't think that I can.

A similar claim is that people won't give a bad product a second chance, even after many years. But the point is, unless you launch like Cuil, you won't have many users in the beginning. So if some percentage of those few hundred people lose faith, it could be a small price to pay for the knowledge you will gain.

As for Duke Nukem Forever, if it came out today there would be plenty of interest. It might be considered a joke but that is only really a threat someones ego. Of course, it is a financial threat as well but that is because of the massive development costs, not marketing that back-fired.

[loewenskind]

>Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to?

Microsoft. I ignore anything they say until they have something I can actually buy. They've made too many announcements that were just never spoken of again.

[coliveira]

Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...

[kranner]

Only if that's all there was to Microsoft's success.

[loewenskind]

Their successful in spite of announcing a lot of vaporware, but their biggest win of all; windows was top secret until it was released, right?

[krakensden]

My understanding was that the first release of Windows came a long time after the initial announcement, but it was a little before my time.

Microsoft's usual strategy, that no one has explicitly stated yet, is to try and discourage its customers from buying a product by promising the moon 'just around the corner' for a couple years. Microsoft is seen as a better long term bet, and this depresses sales even though it doesn't actually have a product yet, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of the failure of its competitors.

So when people are angrily referring to Microsoft vaporware, that's what they're talking about.